Amazon will buy thousands of pedal-assist cargo vehicles from Rivian spinoff Also

Also, the micromobility startup spun out of Rivian, has landed a commercial deal with Amazon to supply the e-commerce company with thousands of its new pedal-assist cargo quad vehicles that are big enough to carry more than 400 pounds of packages and small enough to use a bike lane.

Under the multi-year collaboration, the two companies will work on customizing the pedal-assist vehicles to meet Amazon’s delivery needs in Europe and the United States. The TM-Q pedal-assist electric quads will launch in 2026, according to Also, which revealed the Wednesday at an event in Oakland alongside the company’s new ebike called the TM-B.

While Also is a new company, its executives already have a long-held relationship with Amazon. Rivian, the EV maker where Also was born, is backed by Amazon and has supplied the company with more than 25,000 of its electric delivery vans.

“We really understand how to work with each other,” Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe told TechCrunch ahead of the event, adding that everything they learned from the EDV van program was poured into this project. “This is where having Rivian as a large shareholder is very handy because we can do all this tight coordination through one fleet management portal that manages your large vehicles, like the EDV vans, and the Also products.”

The advantage is knowing exactly what Amazon needs, Scaringe added. “There’s no guesswork and Also has benefited from a lot of input from the Rivian team, which has been involved, because they’re so close to Amazon.

Also started as a skunkworks within Rivian and spun out of the EV maker earlier this year with a new name and $105 million in funding from Eclipse Ventures. Also is a standalone company, but it has close ties with Rivian, which holds a minority stake. Scaringe will serve on its board, and Also will use — and already has — the automaker’s tech, retail presence, and economies of scale.

The TM-Q and Also’s TM-B ebike share much of the same DNA, including the drivetrain, a pedal-by-wire system developed by Also. Even some of the physical elements, notably the handlebars and a built-in five-inch circular touchscreen that can be turned to lock and unlock the vehicle, are the same. That touchscreen unit, which displays navigation, media controls, fitness stats, and assist levels, syncs with the Also app to let users check their battery charge, download software updates, and manage security.

The vehicles also share the same battery technology, although the quad cargo vehicles have more power capacity. Instead of incorporating a large battery in the electric quad vehicles, Also has kept them portable and removable. Also President Chris Yu said the company is working building battery dock stations so you can actually swap them.

Unlike its two-wheeled consumer sibling, the TM-Q will be tailored to commercial uses and include software that handles logistics, delivery, and charging. The TM-Q diminutive stature and pedal-assist system makes it ideal for delivering packages to customers who live in dense, urban areas, according to Emily Barber, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet.

There is already an operational micromobility operation for Also quad cargo vehicles. Amazon has more than 70 micromobility hubs in cities across the U.S. and Europe, Barber said.

Amazon won’t be the only TM-Q customers though. Yu said Also, noting how popular the quad design was within the company, won’t completely limit its quad cargo vehicles to commercial customers. The company also unveiled a consumer TM-Q that has the same underlying quad platform, but lacks the delivery van topper. Instead, the vehicle has a bench system spacious enough to haul a few friends, kids, pets, or groceries.

And there may be other iterations in the future, Yu and Scaringe hinted.

“It’s less about what’s on top here and it’s more about the underlying quad platform,” Yu said.

That comes with a distinct advantage, Scaringe noted. “What I love about these, to do a new top hat on a car it’s like a billion dollars; to do new top hat here, it’s a lot less,” he said, laughing.